The head of Computational Social Sciences at the BSC is the first female to lead CODATA since it was formed in 1966
Mercè Crosas, head of Computational Social Sciences at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), was elected new President of CODATA, the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (ISC), during the General Assembly held in Salzburg and online on 27 and 28 October. Crosas is the first female president of CODATA since it was formed in 1966.
CODATA’s mission is to connect data and people to advance science as a global public good by promoting international collaboration to advance Open Science, as well as to improve the availability and usability of data for all areas of research.
Mercè Crosas has been the head of Computational Social Sciences at the BSC since 2023, a new program that aims to facilitate the use of data and computing in the social sciences and humanities, and advance new computational research in these domains. From 2021 to 2022, she was Secretary of Open Government for the Government of Catalonia. Prior to that, Crosas was Chief Data Science &Technology Officer at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science and University-wide Research Data Management Officer.
She said, “Im honoured and excited to be elected as the president of CODATA and be part of the CODATA community. It is a critical time for the role of data, not only in science but also for addressing societal issues, and at this time, CODATA’s responsibilities and impact are most relevant.”